Spartan Bridge - ' East Lancashire Shropshire Style'

[marsa69]

Spartan Bridge - East Lancashire in 7mm

As promised, pictures 

New yard layout and entrance





and some mock-ups of how I envisage the yard looking





Here is what I was saying about the bufferstops I'm making up. The next photo shows the transformation of the scrap sprue into a sleeper and the second photo with them placed in position. The right hand sleeper is an old peco one used for getting the gauge about right and holding the bits together





:wave:

Mark

 

[marsa69]

Spartan Bridge - East Lancashire in 7mm

Another update as I know you all like them

Bar one siding the yard is nearly finished.



And heres the station throat,



The templot plan in the first picture is positioned to take into account any future move and a proper board being built for the fiddle yard. It was used to gauge just how close to the edge the entrance/exit track would get. As you can see from the second picture the crossover will fit in nicely giving me quite a spacious couple of platforms for DMU or 1+2 loco operation. Initially I thought I'd bitten off more than I could chew but looking at the boards with the track down and the templates in place I might just get away with it, providing I get the scenic bits right :lol:

Apart from saving to get the bits to build the turnouts I've decided that I'm going to buy C+L flexitrack to save time. I just don't fancy hand-building all that plain track, even if it is quite a straightforward job. But thats something else I need to save for.

Thats where things stand now and after todays news that another house move is on the cards this summer I can only gather that someone somewhere doesn't want me to complete this :shock:

regards,

Mark

 

[iploffy]

Spartan Bridge - East Lancashire in 7mm

your not being sent to Coventry are you Nasty :twisted: :twisted:

ploffy

 

[marsa69]

Spartan Bridge - East Lancashire in 7mm

Yup! Another house move buttttttttttttt..................................I get a bigger room

Now the plan will need another change but at least not to the track plan. I'm thinking of turning the end station board through 90 degrees, I'll lose a platform but gain an extra 2ft on the rest of the station which will considerably aid my passenger workings and general operational potential. I had originally toyed with leaving as is an djust adding a 'proper' 4ft fiddle yard to t'other end. This may still happen but nothings definite until I can get into the new house and measure up.

As they say watch this space

 

[marsa69]

Spartan Bridge - East Lancashire in 7mm

Because of the impending house move (sometime in the next few weeks if I know HMG) I've decided to leave any major projects until after the move. Instead I've started doing a bit on the wiring side, placing a few feeds, making sure the battered old PECO turnouts work, working out isolation section, that kind of thing. So its an enjoyable :shock: few hours with a soldering iron, 'Duette' twin controller and a Lima 33 playing hunt the current :twisted:

 

[marsa69]

Spartan Bridge - East Lancashire in 7mm

Found it! The yard is fully wired up but I do have some long-term concerns about the two peco turnouts in the yard. I know they are a bit battered but I've had to strip down the switching mechanism on both of them to clean them up and modify them to work properly. If I could afford it I'd just replace them with two new ones and chuck em in the bin. At least for now they work as does the old speaker wire I salvaged and used to good effect for the power feeds. Now if just had those brass fishplates I could have had the 3-way powered by now as well

 

[marsa69]

Spartan Bridge - East Lancashire in 7mm

Well thats the house move booked for in 3 weks time but would you believe it? We could have another move in Jan 2011 :shock:

You really, really couldn't make it up

 

[Ressaldar]

Spartan Bridge - East Lancashire in 7mm

Hi Jordan,

your suggestion is a good one - a friend of mine has built his layout in the back of an articulated trailer - just needs to get a 'Steady Eddie' to drag it to the next house.

regards

Mike

 

[marsa69]

Spartan Bridge - East Lancashire in 7mm

Where can you get brass fishplates from - for 7mm FS right?

C+L finescale do them

 

[iploffy]

Spartan Bridge - East Lancashire in 7mm

Hi Jordan,

your suggestion is a good one - a friend of mine has built his layout in the back of an articulated trailer - just needs to get a 'Steady Eddie' to drag it to the next house.

regards

Mike

Dont get telling him that he will want to live in there as well :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Ploffy

 

[marsa69]

Spartan Bridge - East Lancashire in 7mm

I thought that there may be some in brass for standard - non cosmetic - type?

C+L Finescale do brass ones that aren't cosmetic

 

[marsa69]

Spartan Bridge - East Lancashire in 7mm

They do etched ones and cast ones. Can't really say why but I'd imagine that the cast ones are thicker and better for conducting that electrickery

 

[marsa69]

Spartan Bridge - East Lancashire in 7mm

7FP101B 7 mm etched brass fishplate - 48 prs. ?6.50 add to basket
7FPB 7 mm cast brass fishplates - 12 ?5.80 add to basket

Thats cut and paste straight off their website

 

[marsa69]

Spartan Bridge - East Lancashire in 7mm

Well a strange weekend for Spartan Bridges only certified operational loco 47238


Here it rounds the curve after passing through Dudley Port on it's way to collect some wagons from 'IPloffy Engineers' at Tipton. 24063 and a classmate wait in the 'down' loop


A busy Sunday in the West Midlands saw it come to the rescue of classmate 47535 which had failed on a postal working. An unidentified 08 and class 20 stand in the down loop. A malfunctioning camera created an optical illusion that looked very much like a class 35, in blue D7100, sat in the 'up' loop :shock:


Running over 6hrs late, and wrong line, 47238 powers away from Tipton heading home for East Lancashire

Thanks to Ian for letting my battered Duff and unfinished wagons parade around in his bit of the West Midlands Still not a patch on East Lancashire though

 

[iploffy]

Spartan Bridge - East Lancashire in 7mm

Hello mate those photo's came out quite nice I had a very enjoyable day

Ian

 

[lancer1027]

Spartan Bridge - East Lancashire in 7mm

Hi Mark, Exellent pics and of course all BR BLUE
Looks like you lads enjoyed your day

Rob :wave:

 

[marsa69]

Spartan Bridge - East Lancashire in 7mm

Just a quick update!

The last of the track has now been laid in the yard and all that is still required is to purchase two more bufferstops, wire-in an isolating section in siding no.1 and wire across the board ends on siding no.1 Then it will just be the scenic side of things to 'do' in the yard.

Next step for me is to complete the last of the trackwork that straddles boards 1 & 2. Here I have a bit of a problem. A normal B6 L/H turnout would be the norm but it would take the station approach line right up to the baseboard edge, which would not be good. A curved turnout would take up too much room. I am toying with purchasing one of the new C+L timber turnout bases as they claim they can be bent and shaped to fit the location. This sounds ideal as then I can have a curved B6 (best of both worlds) and build the rest of the turnout in-situ, although it could end up partially straddling the two boards :shock: I may just order one and have a play.

Right time to go and earn my running time at Tipton and knock together a couple of B6 turnouts for Mr Ploffy

toodle pip,

Mark

 

[lancer1027]

Spartan Bridge - East Lancashire in 7mm

Hi Mark, look forward to some progress pics soon

Rob :wave:

 

[iploffy]

Spartan Bridge - East Lancashire in 7mm

Erm gone a bit quiet again from the marsa guy

Ian

 

[iploffy]

Spartan Bridge - East Lancashire in 7mm

Com on uncle Marsa we want an update

Ploffy